PACIFISM AND NUCLEAR WEAPONS DON’T MIX. Just look at Japan. In October 1999, when Liberal vice defense minister Shingo Nishimura casually remarked that Tokyo should consider going nuclear, his colleagues nearly choked. Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi rebuked him, as did Liberal party boss Ichiro Ozawa, a famous security hawk. There were red faces all around, and Nishimura was promptly sacked.

But a lot can change in three years. During the spring of 2002, Japan’s deputy chief cabinet secretary, Shinzo Abe, claimed it was “not necessarily unconstitutional” for Tokyo to deploy tactical nukes in its own defense. This made headlines, but Abe kept his job. Indeed, his direct superior, the more moderate Yasuo Fukuda, affirmed that a “review” of Japan’s three-decade-old anti-nuclear policy might soon be in order. Such comments were no longer anathema–thanks, above all, to Kim Jong Il.